Friday Box Office: Adam Sandler’s ‘Hotel Transylvania’ Comes Out Swinging

The Adam Sandler animated comedy Hotel Transylvania topped the box office on Friday, according to Box Office Mojo. The film, which also stars Kevin James, Andy Samberg, and Selena Gomez, kicked off the weekend with an impressive $11 million in ticket sales. Given how horrendous box office receipts have been this month, this sum is certainly music to the industry’s beleaguered ears.

However, on the opposite end of the spectrum is the Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis “parent trigger” drama Won’t Back Down. The film, which chronicles the exploits of two mothers who lock horns with the public school system, is reportedly on-track for the worst opening weekend of the year. Despite its appearance in over 2,500 theaters, the film only earned an astonishing $921,000. Somewhere, the Oogieloves are singing a very happy song.

Director Rian Johnson’s Looper, a science fiction flick starring Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, and an almost unrecognizable Joseph Gordon-Levitt, managed to generate an estimated $6.9 million on its opening day. If it continues to do this sort of business over the weekend, the film’s three-day box office total will probably land somewhere around $20 million.

Johnson recently explained his nervousness about Looper’s performance at the box office to The Times-Picayune. “It’s so scary leading up to the first big actual release we’ve had with the movie, and to have that kind of positive feedback — no matter what happens at the box office I feel like we’ve had a great experience. I feel like we’ve already won,” he said.

This weekend’s other notable release, the PG-13 musical comedy Pitch Perfect, landed in sixth place with $1.7 million on Friday. This total, however, was generated from only 335. Studio execs are hoping for a much bigger take when the film opens wider on October 5.

Last week’s contenders, though stumbling a bit against the competition, are still holding their own. End of Watch, the gritty police drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal, brought in an estimated $2.4 million on Friday, while the Jennifer Lawrence chiller House at the End of the Street snagged $2.3 million. Both films are down around 50 percent from last weekend’s box office earnings.